Categories Billions Review

Five Shows More People Should Be Watching – June 15, 2018

Billions: A Show With Great Scripts and a Fine Cast

by Megan McArdle | Washington Post | June 15, 2018

The temptation of writing about culture is always to find something to pan. Critical reviews flow easily from the fingertips, while applause involves the hard labor of finding 16 synonyms for “good.” But I ate my Wheaties this morning, and I’m looking for a challenge. So let’s talk about good shows — great shows, even. Shows that more people should be watching. People like you.

“Billions” (Showtime)

Another show with great scripts and a fine cast. (You may be sensing a theme here). This is high-finance as revenge-drama. The first three seasons portray a long-running cat-and-mouse game between hedge-fund titan Bobby Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis, and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades, played by Paul Giamatti. But the showrunners haven’t given into the temptation to make Axelrod the bad guy and Rhoades the hero. Instead, we have twin protagonists — both badly flawed, but also deeply appealing.

The cast is terrific, the writing reminiscent of a less-manic Aaron Sorkin, and thanks to a different Sorkin (Andrew Ross, longtime finance reporter for the New York Times, and no relation to the creator of “The West Wing”), “Billions” is even a reasonably realistic portrayal of both finance and securities law. I suspect it isn’t getting the audience it deserves because people think finance is dull, but trust me, in the hands of this team, it never is.

Read the rest of the original article at Washington Post

Categories Billions Recap

From The Trader’s Desk: Recapping S3E12 ‘Elmsley Count’ – June 15, 2018

Where Does Your Loyalty Lie?

by Lady Trader | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

Source: Showtime

Is this it? Can this really be the last “From the Trader’s Desk” for this season? Sadly, the answer is yes. I have enjoyed writing about Billions from the “Wall Street” side of the things, and hope you’ve enjoyed my posts as well. I also hope I helped with the “fin-speak” and in understanding the world of finance. On a personal note: I didn’t know if I would be able to contribute to FanFun when Billions started in March, after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma last summer. But, not only did I contribute almost every week, I feel I have done some of my best writing. Thank you Damianista, and everyone who reads our blog for helping me get back to normal!

Instead of a basic recap, I’ll look at the two relationships that were the backbone (from the financial side anyway) of this episode: Axe-Taylor and Taylor-Wendy. I know there was a flurry of “fin-speak” at the Spartan-Ives Capital Introduction Event at CitiField (my second home on many Saturdays!), but I won’t go into details about it. I don’t think they were relevant to the overall episode (as opposed to other times when it was the meat of the story). I have updated the Billions:Glossary with all the definitions, and as always, if there is something you’d like me to explain or give examples of, please let me know.

Continue reading From The Trader’s Desk: Recapping S3E12 ‘Elmsley Count’ – June 15, 2018

Categories Billions Review

What the Rest of TV Can Learn from Billions – July 14, 2018

The Showtime Drama is Built for Speed – and All the Better For It

by Alan Speinwall | RollingStone | June 14, 2018

Source: Showtime

The midpoint of Billions Season 3 featured a huge moment for the series to date: the Showtime drama’s arch-rivals, U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and hedge fund mogul Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis), facing each other across a dining room table and, with the help of Chuck’s wife/Axe’s therapist Wendy (Maggie Siff), acknowledging that they needed to join forces against a common enemy.

In today’s ultra-serialized drama landscape, it’s the kind of scene that almost any other show would have saved for the very end of its season finale, or the penultimate episode at the latest. Billions actually repeated this dynamic in its own finale, which we’ll get back to, but that it happened as early as Episode 6 was striking. Too many other shows that consider each season “a 13-hour movie” would have built the whole thing around that meeting, throwing complication after complication at Chuck, Wendy and Axe so that it would happen as close to the end of the year as possible, and that sense of wheel-spinning would have been palpable.

Continue reading What the Rest of TV Can Learn from Billions – July 14, 2018

Categories Billions Recap

Billions on Showtime 3.12: Elmsley Count – June 14, 2018

“Young lungs, so yeah.”

by JaniaJania | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | June 14, 2018

Source: Showtime

It’s cap raise time for Axe Cap and everyone gets more than they bargained for in Billons Season 3, Episode 12, “Elmsley Count”. The season finale promises to be a doozy with so many threads to tie up.

Taylor is arriving late to the event. Before the uber gets there, they have a sit-down with Andolov, who in all his gross creepy generosity concedes that he would, then asks them to prognosticate on what newly minted Taylor Mason Cap can do for him.

At the cap raise, Axe fluffs up the allocators, then has Taylor deliver the money shot. They promise to take care of the money transparently.

All the mysteries revealed.

Axe takes his people to see The Hold Steady at the Hammerstein Ballroom and delivers chaste kisses of celebration to Wags and Wendy.

Continue reading Billions on Showtime 3.12: Elmsley Count – June 14, 2018